


The Same Coin

by janetcarter



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Allies With Benefits, Choking, Dubious Consent, F/M, Restraints, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-15 07:43:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/pseuds/janetcarter
Summary: Lyta thinks Lennier is foolish for rejecting the truth about Delenn, but she’s been lying to herself about something, too.





	The Same Coin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kanadka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/gifts).

It was a difficult thing, sending soldiers out to die after being a weapon so long herself. 

The Corps had shot down their most recent ship of fighters and, no matter how meticulously Lyta scanned the stars, she couldn’t detect a single pulse from any of their people. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and maybe it wouldn’t have if the Interstellar Alliance had stepped in by now. 

Too bad Sheridan and Delenn were so far up on their thrones, they could only see the Resistance as a swarm of tiny pests. They thought the cause would either fizzle out or win in some blaze of glory, and they could take credit for the work of thousands of rogues. 

Under the weight of those rogues was Lyta. Every time she felt like she might crumble beneath the pressure, she thought of Delenn. Delenn upheld war after war like she was Atlas unwavering. Everyone praised her for her strength, when the only reason she came out unscathed was because of how many people sacrificed themselves to keep her alive. She’d promised a better world, but only the lucky would get to live in it. 

Sometimes, Lyta wondered if anyone would have died for her had it not been for her manipulation. And now Lyta was spewing the same promises of a better tomorrow to her people. Sending loyal soldiers to their deaths just twisted the knife deeper, because it didn’t feel any different from what Delenn had done to her.

Part of her tried to believed it couldn’t be that simple. Telepaths were caught up in a war no one wanted to fight, but they _ chose _to die on the front lines. Plus, Lyta actually cared about her people. Delenn felt no remorse for what she’d done to her.

Or to Lennier. 

It was how they both ended up in her shoddy bedroom in the Resistance bunker, Lyta against a wall and his gentle hands steadying her thighs, discussing their recent loss in breathy tones. She shuddered when his tongue swirled around her clit. Forcing her eyelids open, she looked down at him from against the stone wall. “This can’t... happen again.” 

His crest nodded beneath her tight grip, broadening his strokes. In the space between them, his thoughts whispered:_ It won’t. _

As his tongue plunged inside slick folds, she arched into the wall to counter her trembling legs. She’d hoped arousal would cancel out her anxieties just for a moment, but they only crescendoed together, louder and faster, intertwined until she shattered. 

She slid to the floor as she exhaled, collapsing into Lennier’s arms. The pleasure slowly drained away like sand in an hourglass, sharp fragments emerging from beneath. Coupled with her remaining anger was the familiar tinge of regret coloring Lennier’s touch. It read as an unbearable self disgust, like he saw this as cheating on the women he “loved”. It was nauseating enough to make her miss the singe of isolated rage.

Regardless of his self-righteous motivations, he was working for the Resistance, now. Their side would’ve been a hell of a lot better off if the Interstellar Alliance hadn’t willfully neglected the crisis; and that included Delenn. She’d turned a blind eye to every injustice assaulting telepaths until it was too late. 

That seemed to be the way Delenn went about most things, really. 

How could Lennier still care about her? After everything she’d done, how could he be so disgustingly loyal to someone who only used him? Delenn saw him as a pawn. That was all. Otherwise, she would’ve released her grasp on his heart before she nearly killed its pulse.

After a few deep breaths she dredged up a gentle and loving image of Delenn from his mind. She was at his bedside after he’d jumped into the line of fire for her. Her hand clutched his so tightly Lyta was surprised she hadn’t broken his fingers. She’d done the same to Lyta as she scanned Z’ha’dum for any traces of Sheridan. 

Of course, Lennier’s heart melted as the scene blanketed his mind. Lyta could only wonder if Delenn would’ve shown the same concern had he gotten hurt any other way.

Lyta pushed fiery strands of hair away from her vision. It allowed her to see him clearly, a devoted Minbari whose empty eyes awaited instruction. 

She sighed. “You know she doesn’t care, right?” 

“I do not deserve her affection,” he said simply. The pit in his chest was decipherable as a strong_ I wish she did. _

Lyta latched onto another glimpse of her in his thoughtstream, pulling it out into the open. It manifested around them like crystalline snowfall frozen mid-air. Inside each drop was a memory of Delenn’s fingertips against his cheek. 

The specific instance casting between them took place in a confined part of Downbelow. Her breath was warm on his neck, and her beautiful eyes kept glancing to his lips. It quickly faded from grounded memory as her fingers guided his crest between her legs. 

“Do you really believe that, though?” She enhanced the underlying guilt, a shadowy sea surging from the vents beneath him and Delenn. It drowned them both as the next memory emerged. In this one, Lennier fled as Sheridan choked to death. That moment didn’t hold a drop of regret or guilt or self-hatred, and so the inky waters dissolved. 

The glassy apparitions surrounding them melted as she brushed her hand against his crest. “Don’t you want something for yourself, for once?” 

His jaw twitched against her palm. “What I want is of no importance.” 

He leaned into her touch as she stroked down his jawline, before jerking his chin upward. A strained lump slid down his throat. “Don’t lie to me, Lennier. I’m not her.”

Silence. After the absence of survivors from the earlier attack, silence was the last thing she wanted to hear. 

She shook her head and rigidly pointed to the nearby mattress. If acting on someone else was cheating, what would his precious _ Delenn _ consider this? 

“On the bed.” 

With a hesitant nod, he followed. A litany of self deprecating thoughts crawled all over his mind like insects. They burrowed between folds and neurons, justifying this as punishment for wanting someone he didn’t deserve. 

Lyta clenched her teeth. That wasn’t why she was doing this. She was doing this because he loved someone who didn’t deserve_ him, _ and because he had the nerve to blame himself for it. 

She nodded downward, pinning his limbs against the mattress with invisible chains. His naked form shivered beneath her fingertips as they traced the azure streaking down his torso, returning higher to press into his hardened nipples. No matter how hard he tried to quiet his deep breathing, Lyta heard every shaky exhale. 

Her hold on his limbs was lenient enough to fracture if he so desired, but, despite his fidgeting, every invisible shackle remained intact. Was it because he was too dutiful to protest? Or was it because, despite everything he told himself, he wanted this? She’d figure it out soon enough. 

Steely eye contact reflected back as she straddled him. She stroked his cheek the way Delenn had in the memory, and took special care to trace his ear. His jaw clenched to hold back a quiet moan, but waves of arousal ratted him out. He hardened beneath her sensitive entrance, length swelling out from within. 

She let herself embrace the pleasure between them before kneeling between his legs. His face was plain, or so he tried to pretend, as she lowered her mouth. If he wanted this to end, it was up to him to voice it. It was up to him to talk back against authority, to stop repressing every desire like it was a crime. It was up to him to be a _ person _. 

Unfortunately for him, he showed no promise as he let her tongue slide down his length. Whenever she reached just beneath one of the nubs running down his shaft, he spiraled with restrained pleasure. 

Every swirl of her tongue made him think of Delenn, blurred and strained. He knew he had no right to envision her soft lips around his cock, but his desires overpowered his twisted rationale. Unlike with his verbal lies, he couldn’t keep the image of Delenn jerking him off from jabbing right into Lyta’s mind. 

Of course Lyta was nothing to him when he saw Delenn as a compassionate goddess, ethereal and selfless. Once upon a time, Lyta did the same. But now, she was smart enough to hold Delenn accountable for her actions; even if people like Lennier still refused to see the truth.

Delenn had done absolutely nothing when everyone ostracized her.

Lyta raked her nails against the lines streaking down Lennier’s thighs, scratches tainting their blue with crimson. 

She’d done nothing to keep Lennier from snapping and almost killing the President of the Interstellar Alliance. 

She grasped his length and watched his abdominals tighten and shift while binding sunk into his wrists.

She’d done nothing to keep that same husband from turning the Resistance on its head and crushing the pieces beneath his heel.

She pinched his esophagus with invisible fingertips, restricting his airflow like he’d done to Sheridan, like Ulkesh had done to her. 

She’d never visited her in her holding cell, never apologized… 

She didn’t care about her legions of cannon fodder. _ She only cared about herself. _

Any semblance of a block vanished as soon as it reached him. _ You have... no right... to blame her. _

She bolted upright, red blurring her vision. “How could you still defend her?” 

“I… ”

He yelped when the restraints dug into his skin. 

“How could you_ love _ her?” As she crawled over his torso, Delenn still poisoned every thought with guilt. “She was using you!” 

Her nails cut into her palm as she closed off his esophagus. His chest frantically rose and fell in an attempt to breach her hold, but his lungs withered like dying flowers.

A strangled “please” escaped his throat, one she wasn’t sure she’d heard more than detected in his panicked thoughts.

For just a moment, she was back with Ulkesh, air abandoning her lungs. She was on the front lines, black surging behind her vision as the shadows dismantled her mind. She was on Mars, all alone, sending weaponized telepaths to die.

She was in a hidden Resistance bunker, shoving her soldier to the brink of death just to open up his eyes. 

_ You’re no different... than her. _

He fell against the mattress. The blue in his cheeks faded to that pale pinkish hue while his hands grabbed his throat. 

“Go.” 

He didn’t move. Maybe he couldn’t. 

_ “GO!” _

Her thoughts and voice roared together through his synapses. The distortion flew off him like birds fleeing a forest, fragmented chirps echoing against an empty sky. He scrambled to the floor. As soon as his robes were half-on, she shoved him out into the hallway with an invisible force. 

She fell to her knees as the door slammed behind.

He was right. She wasn’t any better than Delenn. She might’ve even been worse.

What did it matter? She had a war to win.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Wildandwhirling for being a stellar beta! Her feedback was super helpful <3 Anyway, good luck to Lennier half-naked out in the hallway... and to Lyta after, uh, all of that...


End file.
